Wireless service providers continually seek new ways to maximize the capabilities of the current wireless infrastructure in order to improve wireless service. There is a growing effort to integrate capabilities of conventional wide-area wireless networks and newer small-area wireless networks to provide a converged wireless network in which users may use a single dual-mode wireless device, e.g., phone, computer, or personal data assistant, to communicate over both wide-area and small-area wireless networks. The wide-area networks include cellular networks such as Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) wireless networks, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless networks, and various other wide-area wireless networks. The small-area wireless networks include WiFi networks such as Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11a/b/g wireless local area networks (WLANs) and various other small-area wireless networks.
For example, using a converged wireless network, a user may use a dual-mode wireless device to communicate over WiFi networks when the user is at home, at the office, or in a WiFi hotspot, and may use the same dual-mode wireless device to communicate over cellular networks when the user is away from home, the office, and the WiFi hotspot. The trend toward converged wireless networks is primarily driven by two factors. The first factor is the significantly lower cost incurred by a wireless service provide in providing wireless service over a small-area WiFi network versus providing wireless service over a wide-area cellular wireless network. The second factor is increasing demand by users to have a single wireless device which may be used anywhere, irrespective of the type of wireless network available.
Despite the many benefits of converged wireless networks, by enabling communication over different types of wireless networks using one dual-mode wireless device, converged wireless networks result in more complicated service subscription and service billing scenarios. In traditional cellular networks, for example, each user subscribes to wireless service from a wireless service provider. A user typically contracts for a wireless service subscription that is based on a total number of monthly minutes, e.g., 600 peak minutes and 3000 off-peak minutes, e.g., night and weekend minutes, for $50/month. In converged wireless networks, on the other hand, since costs to wireless service providers of providing service over cellular networks and WiFi networks is different, wireless service providers may want to bill customers differently for service provided over cellular networks versus service provided over WiFi networks.
Disadvantageously, the existing approach to wireless service subscription and billing in converged wireless networks requires each user to obtain two wireless service subscriptions, one subscription for communications over cellular networks and another subscription for communications over WiFi networks. As a result, since users typically contract for wireless service subscriptions based on a total number of monthly minutes, existing billing practices for converged wireless networks therefore require users to track two sets of minutes, i.e., cellular minutes and WiFi minutes, as well as receive two separate bills for the two different wireless service subscriptions. This extra tracking of minutes that must be performed by users of converged wireless networks, as well as the additional bill received by the users, may deter the users from switching to converged wireless networks, thereby depriving both wireless service providers and users from various benefits of converged wireless networks.